


What Happened in Vegas?

by Happy_Schmuell, roaroftheninth



Series: The Edges of Things AU [3]
Category: Shameless (US)
Genre: Anniversary, Las Vegas, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-05
Updated: 2020-10-05
Packaged: 2021-03-08 02:08:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,772
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26837983
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Happy_Schmuell/pseuds/Happy_Schmuell, https://archiveofourown.org/users/roaroftheninth/pseuds/roaroftheninth
Summary: Ian and Mickey are both incredibly hungover and convinced that they won the slots last night. The only question is, where the hell did they put the money?
Relationships: Ian Gallagher/Mickey Milkovich
Series: The Edges of Things AU [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1957516
Comments: 17
Kudos: 85





	What Happened in Vegas?

**Author's Note:**

> This story is a sort of epilogue to The Edges of Things, but you don't have to have read that story to follow this one. Essentially, the boys are on a trip to Vegas for their one-year anniversary and things have gone slightly awry.

It was morning, and Mickey was absolutely furious about it.

He was furious about it in that way you sometimes are when you first wake up, before you can really place anything into context. You're just upset that the world is awake, full stop. You don't even know why yet. 

After a moment, though, he definitely knew why.

The first thing was the stabbing headache in one of his temples, so loud that he could almost _hear it._ It reminded him a little of being in the hospital, and his mind skipped back automatically, over the days and months and years before. 

Just to double-check. 

It reassured him a little that he could remember things, that he knew that the too-warm weight against his back was Ian. Then, his mind caught up and he remembered all too clearly that it was the whiskey, beer, and champagne (?) that he could feel trying to beat their way out of his skull, relentlessly and remorselessly. It had nothing to do with head trauma; this one was all on him.

Conscious of the fact that his stomach was rolling, he eased Ian's arm off of him and sat up very, very slowly. The hotel room was dark and cool, which seemed like a small but extremely important miracle. Next to the bed, on the nightstand, there was an open beer. He considered it only for a second - a little hair of the dog - before his stomach lurched unpleasantly and he looked away quickly. 

What had _happened_ last night?

As usual, Ian was sound asleep until Mickey moved first. When his arm was pushed off, even gently, he flickered quickly into consciousness... sort of. While he knew that Mickey had moved and that was what had woken him, even with his eyes closed he was disoriented. As he rolled his face into the pillow in the space Mickey had left behind, he caught the faint scent of his aftershave and... a very clean scent, one that didn't quite match the detergent from home. The pillowcase was a lot softer than the ones at home, too. It came to him gradually. 

_Hotel... Vegas... Anniversary..._

He flashed on playing blackjack, on most definitely fucking Mickey in a heart-shaped tub and drinking champagne after. The rest, for the moment, was just noise in his head. His pounding head. Face still buried in the pillow, he groaned. 

"Mick... are we dead?"

  
Mickey reached out without looking and very, very gently put his hand on the side of Ian's head, as if verifying the answer to Ian's question for himself. 

  
  
"No," he decided, after a moment. "Kind of wish I was." 

The inside of his mouth tasted like rancid garbage. He was pretty confident that his toothbrush wouldn't actually fix anything, but it couldn't possibly hurt to remove garbage breath from the list of things that were making him feel less than human right now. Pushing himself to his feet, Mickey paused for a long moment, letting the room swirl and settle around him. 

"I think I'm gonna be sick," he decided. 

Stumbling into the bathroom, he blindly thrust up the toilet seat and threw up until there was nothing left in his stomach, and then for another minute or two after that. When he was done, he gingerly let himself sit back against the tub, closing his eyes.

"Do you have to do that so loud?" Ian said, raising his voice though it was still muffled in the pillow. Normally someone else being sick didn't bother him - he dealt it was almost daily at work - but this morning, listening to Mickey retching in the bathroom, his stomach felt just seconds from heaving up its own contents. 

_"Fuck,"_ he mumbled, rolling onto his back, arm over his eyes to block out any lights that Mickey might at any point decide to turn on. "How much did you let me drink last night?"

Mickey just groaned in response. Gathering himself, he braced his hand on the edge of the tub and pushed himself slowly to his feet. Well, small miracles - at least he didn't still feel quite so nauseous. 

Fumbling for his toothbrush, he was only too glad to taste nothing but mint for a moment or two, scrubbing his teeth as he leaned against the wall with his eyes closed. There was an absolutely astonishing array of empties lined up on the bathroom counter that he was glad not to have to look at. When he was done brushing, he filled the two coffee mugs sitting on the counter with water, and brought them with him back into the bedroom. 

Gingerly sitting down on the edge of the bed, Mickey offered Ian one of the mugs. "You gotta drink this," he said. "I'm gonna get your pills. In a second. I gotta rest." 

Eyes still closed, Ian waved Mickey away with the hand not attached to the arm still covering half of his face. 

"If I drink anything right now, it'll come right back up. Gimme a few." 

They both stayed where they were in an almost stunned silence for a moment, as though they were recovering from some kind of shock over how hungover they were.

"I don't think I've ever felt pain like this in my entire life,” Ian said eventually, almost wonderingly. “I didn't know one head could actually hurt this much. Think I've finally set a new record for a Gallagher hangover." 

"Yeah. Well, we didn't fuckin' take it easy." 

Mickey set the two mugs on the nightstand and let himself back down slowly on the pillow. It was an immediate improvement. 

"You remember what we did last night?" Mickey had a few distinct flashes, but certainly nothing like a timeline of events.

"I remember... playing blackjack," Ian said. "Correction: I remember fucking _winning_ at blackjack - toldja I was good at that."

He smiled a little, cocky even though he felt like shit and couldn't recall just how much he'd won. But a win was a win, and regardless of amount, bragging rights still applied. 

Mickey froze as something occurred to him. "You got a tattoo. On your chest."

"I - what?" That got Ian's eyes open, arm moving from his face as he yanked down the sheet that had been covering him. On his chest, just above his left nipple, was a bandage. "The fuck?" 

Slowly, he peeled back the tape and lifted the gauze, his groan this time having nothing to do with his headache but instead what he saw inked - for life - on his skin: _Mikhailo Galeger._

"Yeah," Mickey said. His eyes were still closed, but he could picture that tattoo, alright. "You thought it would be funny if we both had it spelled wrong. Couldn't talk you out of it."

Not that Mickey could remember the details of trying to talk him out of it, but he did remember Ian having none of it. "And you were pretty fuckin' insistent about 'Mikhailo'. Can't remember why, but you were definitely in a good mood about it."

"I have... no memory of this," Ian said, looking down at his chest. "Literally, Mick. No memory of this. Not of the idea, not of you trying to talk me out of it, not of getting - " 

He stopped. 

"Wait... did the guy have a ponytail? Ah, fuck... and he had a toothpick in his mouth the whole time."

It was vague, but it was there: Ian, lying on his back in a chair, grinning at Mickey even as the needle went over his ribs and it hurt. 

"You were in a pretty fucking good mood about it, too," he said, as though that would shift some of the blame onto Mickey. 

"Yeah, I would clean that when you get in the shower," Mickey said. "The guy said tattooing was his side hustle. He also tried to sell us a lava lamp out of his van."

He pushed himself up onto his elbow, pretty confident now that he could - and should - take a few sips of water. "Mandy told me that I have the most ill-advised tattoos of anyone she knows, but I think you just caught up."

"Why would I do this?" Ian asked, letting his head fall back on the pillow again. He knew that, of the two of them, he was the more sentimental one. But this? He'd thought _this_ was romantic? He was almost impressed; he'd had no idea he could actually get that drunk. 

Sighing, he closed his eyes, trying to see if he thought he could go back to sleep. But then, a moment later, his eyes flew open again and he turned his head to look at Mickey. 

"Did I dream it, or did you win the slots?"

"Did I win - ?" Mickey had echoed almost all of Ian's question back to him by the time his brain caught up, and he sat all the way up, electrified.

"I won the fuckin' slots. I won - I _won the fucking slots_." 

It hadn't been a small amount of money, either. In fact, it had been the most money that Mickey had ever held in his hands at once. He almost laughed, except any loud noise seemed like it might hurt his head.

"Ian. Holy fuck. We got it fuckin' made." 

Ian grinned. It was the one bright spot in their hungover morning, and what a bright spot it was.   
  
  
"You better fucking believe we do. Shit... we are _so_ ordering in room service for breakfast. Or lunch. What time even is it?"

“Early,” Mickey said. “But who gives a shit? We’re fuckin’ rich.” 

The more Ian thought about it, the clearer the memory became. The first thing they'd done was hit the slots and about three pulls in, Mickey had hit the motherfucking jackpot. Even after taxes it would be an insane amount. 

"This is why I married you," he announced. 

"Yeah, you like a sugar daddy." Mickey grinned as he leaned over and planted a kiss on him. "Brush your teeth. I'm gonna check out this room service menu and we're gonna spend this morning like motherfucking kings."

"Brushing my teeth implies I can get up," Ian replied, though he thought he could, probably, get to the bathroom. He just didn't want to move yet. 

Reaching for the drawer next to the bed, Mickey had a thought. "We probably put the money in our suitcase or something, right?"

"Probably in both of our suitcases and, like... under the mattress, and my carry-on bag. Learned at home to never hide all your money in just one place. We'll have to give this place a good once-over before we leave to make sure we got it all."

Reassured, Mickey started scanning the menu. "Well, you better brush 'em, or you're not kissing me while we fuck. Normal morning breath I can handle, but that right there is something else."

"What makes you think I'm gonna fuck you? Or want to kiss you while I do it?" Ian's eyes were still closed but he was grinning. 

"What makes me think that? Well, for one thing, we're both breathing." 

Mickey picked up the handset and made the call, ordering anything and everything salty on the menu. Maybe he went a little overboard, but after all, they could afford it. 

"You been thinking about what we're gonna spend the money on?" He asked, laying back down beside Ian again. 

"Spend it? Fuck that, we're saving that shit. Or at least a lot of it. That's, like, a whole vacation fund for next summer. Now that we're old pros at the flying thing, we could go see the ocean." 

Mickey rolled onto his side so he could prop himself up on his elbow and look down into Ian's face. 

"You know what I was thinking? That's probably enough money to buy a baby off someone." 

Ian blinked, wondering if maybe he was dreaming all of this. 

"A ba - to buy a baby off someone? Mickey, we can't _buy_ _a baby_. What the hell are you talking about?" Granted, the traditional way of having a baby wasn't an option for them, and neither were most of the secondary methods, but buying a baby? "You mean like... adopt, right?"

Mickey made the facial expression equivalent of a shrug. "Sure, whatever you want to call it. I'm just saying, there are a lot of people with babies who would rather have a wad of cash instead. Think about it."

Having a kid was Ian's dream, so it had de facto become Mickey's, even though so far he had only thought far enough ahead to try and figure out how to obtain the baby, and not much about what life would be like after. "All that baby shit costs money. Right? And now we have some."

"Okay, we can put back some of the cash for when we have a kid, sure," Ian said. "But... I'm not buying a baby, Mickey. That's - fucking nuts." 

Finally, he pushed himself up into a sitting position and slowly got to his feet. After a couple of test steps, tilting his head to find the side that throbbed _less_ , he made his way to the bathroom to brush his teeth. 

"Why do you always have to leave toothpaste in the sink? Drunk, sober, hungover... always the fucking toothpaste." 

"Sorry, princess," Mickey said, not sounding very sorry. "Better than being the guy who splatters it all over the mirror." 

There was a knock on their door, and Mickey got up to put on some underwear and let their room service in. After the hotel employee had left - Mickey was even feeling magnanimous enough to tip him a couple of crumpled bills that he found in the pockets of his jeans from the night before - he scoped out their food order. 

"No regrets on getting six separate side orders of bacon," he decided. 

"Six orders?" Ian asked, poking his head out of the bathroom, toothbrush in his mouth. "But what are you going to eat?" With a sudsy grin, he disappeared again, coming back a couple of minutes later, mouth rinsed. 

"Seriously, though. I can't decide if that all looks amazing or makes me want to puke. I don't know if I've ever been this hungover." 

Maybe when he'd been in the hospital, when Mickey had moved out. But he wasn't bringing that up. 

He sat on the bed again, scooting back against the pillows. "Okay, sugar daddy. Bring me a plate." 

Mickey grinned at him, popping a piece of bacon into his mouth before grabbing a plate and dishing out a healthy portion of eggs, bacon, breakfast potatoes, and toast for each of them. Once he had brought them over to the bad, he went back to pour them two cups of coffee and returned with those as well. 

"You good, your highness? Can I get you anything else?"

"I could get used to this," Ian said, pulling the sheet and blanket up over his waist since he'd not bothered to put on any clothes. "I think I'm good - oh, grab my meds from my bag?" 

Now that the food was up close, he was suddenly starving. 

"Perfect hangover food," he said around a bite of toast. "You really are the best husband, have I told you that? And it has absolutely nothing to do with all the money you won, though... I mean, legally, it's, like, half mine anyway." 

"Yeah, I am the best husband. Lucky for you, I'm a total sucker for a loose cannon. Especially a tall, ginger one.” Mickey went over to Ian's bag and rifled around for his meds. Then, a frown creasing his brow, he started to dig through his own suitcase, then Ian's carry-on. "So, if I told you that none of our bags has any money in it, your first thought would be...?"

"Check all the pockets." Ian's words were garbled because he'd just piled scrambled eggs on top of his toast and shoved the whole mess into his mouth. But by now Mickey was fluent in Ian-speak with his (lack of) table manners. "I'm sure we hid it good, you know?" 

"Uh huh." Mickey pulled everything out of both bags over the course of the next minute or so, turning them over to shake them once they were empty. Going over to the bed, he dropped Ian's pill bottles onto the mattress next to him, then knelt down to stuff his arm under the mattress to feel around. He checked under the bed, in the bedside drawers, and under the TV stand. 

"Fucking tell me we didn't spend that money last night."

"Of course we didn't spend it,” Ian said. “Not even we could spend fourteen grand in a night. I mean, we _could_. But there's no way we did. Not on, like... booze and a crappy tattoo." 

Ian wasn't as yet as concerned as Mickey seemed to be. Not while wolfing down breakfast and starting to feel almost human again. "Check my carry-on. And my shoes. I always put shit in my shoes. Check the fridge, too." 

Their room had a mini fridge and mini freezer. They'd been smashed, maybe they'd put it in there. 

"We're in Vegas, Ian,” Mickey pointed out. “We didn't have to _spend_ fourteen grand; we just had to gamble it." 

"We wouldn't do that," Ian said immediately. But then he paused? "Would we?"

The honest answer, of course, was yes. Yes, they absolutely might. For some reason, Ian hadn't considered that they might have gambled it all away, but now he realized it was a very real possibility. 

Mickey went through Ian's carry-on, his shoes and the fridge and on top of the closet shelf for good measure. 

"I can't fucking find it. Fuck. Okay." He stood there for a moment, evaluating. "You - take your pills, finish your breakfast. I'm gonna charge my phone and find out where the hell we went last night. Maybe we can retrace our steps."

"You need to eat, too," Ian said. He opened his bottles, shaking out the right pills and swallowing them down. "You eat, we'll shower quick, and then we'll figure out what the fuck we did last night."

"Yeah. Yeah, okay." 

Mickey plugged his phone in, and, as he waited for it to charge, gracelessly crammed a couple of pieces of bacon into his mouth. Now the food annoyed him, representative as it was of their premature joy over their newfound windfall. Money that, he thought savagely, they may have already blown by being _giant fucking idiots_. 

When his screen came on, he snatched up his phone. 

"Holy fuck," he said. "You tagged me in a fuckload of pictures last night." 

Normally, Mickey gave Ian a small to medium amount of shit for posting so much of their life on Instagram with cheesy hashtags. Now, though, it might be the only thing that led them to their money. 

"No shit?" Ian wiped his hands on a napkin and reached for his phone which he usually kept on the table beside the bed, but it wasn't there. Probably in his pocket or something, he thought. Instead, he leaned over to look at Mickey's. "Pull 'em up. If we blew all that money, surely I posted some sad-face shit about it, right?"

"Yeah." Mickey opened his most recent tagged photos. "Okay. We got one at the tattoo parlour. You look fucking _wasted_. Can't believe that guy agreed to tattoo you. Well, I can believe it; he was shady as hell."

Ian couldn't help but laugh. He _did_ look wasted. 

"Holy fuck, is that the first one I posted? I was that wrecked at the _start_ of whatever the fuck we did?"

Mickey’s eyebrow twitched at that, but he didn’t comment. Instead, he scrolled to the next photo.

"Holy shit.” He peered closer at it. “Is that _Elvis_?"

Ian was in stunned silence for a second. 

"Yeah... that's Elvis. And look behind him, at that big-ass heart sign. We were at a wedding chapel. A fucking Vegas wedding chapel. We are officially as white trash as it gets."

"Jesus. Well, we're gonna have to find out if we still had the money when we saw Elvis."

Mickey scrolled through the next few, which featured them pulling faces with what looked like two large drag queens. 

"You tagged the location on these," Mickey said. "Big Jeff's Las Vegas Divas. I assume that's a... drag club?"

"Gee, what gave it away."

Ian had some very fuzzy memories of the club, more than he had of the Elvis sighting. He was pretty sure he had motor-boated the drag queen on the left in the picture but if Mickey didn't remember it, he wasn't bringing that up. 

"Go back to Elvis. Did we get _married_? What did I caption it?"

"You said...” Mickey looked over it quickly, then almost – _almost_ – smiled, despite himself. “You soft bitch." 

He showed Ian the phone as he read it aloud. " _'One year ago I married my soul mate'_ and then like, twelve party face emojis and one eggplant. So yeah, we probably renewed our vows or something." 

Despite his concern over the lost money, Mickey leaned over and kissed the side of Ian's face, ruffling his hair. "You're fuckin' adorable."

"Only one eggplant?" Ian asked, sounding impressed with himself. "I really must've been feeling sappy."   
  
  
He reached over and flipped forward to the drag queen picture again. 

"How the fuck did I get you to a wedding chapel _and_ a drag club in one night?"

"You probably didn't have to work too hard to get me to renew our vows," Mickey admitted. "It's our anniversary and we had some real shit happen to us this year. The drag bar, though... literally anybody's guess."

Well, maybe not - Mickey went wherever Ian went, and always would. 

"What's next?” he asked, passing the phone to Ian. “Any more?"

"Um..." Ian scrolled. "Here's a selfie of us, looks like we're in a cab, no caption there. And... well, we definitely dropped some money here. Is that a fucking _lobster_?"

He showed Mickey the picture he'd tagged him in, the two of them clad in their usual jeans and worn shirts at a restaurant that, quite frankly, he was surprised they'd gotten into. They had wine in front of them along with plates of the kind of food he'd always kind of thought people only ate in the movies. 

Scrolling again, the next picture was of a blurry restaurant front with a well-dressed man standing outside of it, looking pissed. 

" _'This asshole kicked us out just for CELEBRATING OUR_ _ANNIVERSARY'_ \- that's all in caps - _'and having some fun'_ ," he read to Mickey. "I can only imagine what that means."

"Guess we'll find out," Mickey said, rather grimly. His hangover, temporarily forgotten about in the excitement over money and breakfast, was returning with a vengeance. 

Taking the phone back, he scrolled down to the last photo. "Holy shit. I'm surprised we're alive."

They had obviously gone to some club, and there were easily a dozen shots lined up on the bar. Mickey wasn't even looking at the camera. Ian had taken his shirt off. The bartender looked like he had seen some shit.

"Damn." Again, Ian almost sounded impressed. "How the hell didn't you carry me back here? Seriously? How was I even still standing?" 

  
He was such a lightweight while on his meds, and he'd for sure been on his meds, that just three or four beers usually knocked him on his ass. "Can't believe you let me take my shirt off, either." 

"There's no fuckin' stopping you when you want to take your shirt off, Dancing Queen," Mickey told him. He dropped the phone onto the duvet and rubbed wearily at his face. "I gotta hope we bought a round for, fuck, I don't know. Some new friends you made at the bar. Otherwise I probably drank the bulk of those to keep you on your fuckin' feet."

"I had my shirt off," Ian pointed out. "We probably didn't even have to buy those shots." 

He couldn't argue with Mickey; he did like attention, especially when drunk. And if that required taking his shirt off, all the better. 

"I should find my phone. If those are the ones I posted, imagine what's on my camera roll."

"Yeah, well, there'll definitely be some blurry-ass x-rated ones because you were trying to take pictures in the hot tub,” Mickey told him.

"I was? Sounds like me." Ian didn't remember that, but he definitely believed it. "Was I trying to take pictures _while_ we fucked? Our own little sex tape? You know... that's not the worst idea." 

Not that it was a priority, not when they were missing well over ten grand. 

"Yeah, but you had to stop because you kept losing your balance and trying to hold onto me to save yourself,” Mickey said. “Turns out drunk hot tub fucking takes two hands if you don't wanna drown your husband." 

He buried himself in finishing his coffee and eggs for a moment or two. He was, for once, glad for Ian's penchant for going social media crazy after a few drinks. At least they might get a lead on where they'd left their money. 

It would sure as shit be nice to come home from Vegas with more than Ian's ugly-ass tattoo. 

"Okay," Ian said, finally getting up, miraculously leaving some more bacon for Mickey. "I'll shower, then hunt down my phone, and we'll figure this shit out. Feel free to join me."

Mickey finished the rest of the bacon in record time and got up to follow Ian into the bathroom. 

\--

Mickey felt a little better after their shower. Not as good as he would have felt had he had their money in hand, but closer to human. He did think he needed another bucket or two of coffee, though.

After digging through his bag, Ian had pulled on clean jeans and a t-shirt, but he still hadn't located his phone. It wasn't until he'd searched the hot tub area that he found it, wrapped in a towel. When he tried to power it on, it started up, but the picture on the screen was messed up and he quickly discovered that half of the apps weren't working. 

"I'm going to go out on a limb and guessed I dropped this _in_ the hot tub," he said. "Which fucking sucks. You think someone will be able to get the pictures and shit off of it?"

"Maybe," Mickey said. "Isn't Lip good at that stuff?" He was long past being concerned about Lip seeing a picture of him with his junk out. It did mean, though, that the only pictures they had to work with were the ones Ian had uploaded to Instagram before the unfortunate hot tub incident. 

"I dunno. What _isn't_ Lip good at?" That was pretty annoying, but Ian had gotten used to it ages ago, having an actual kind of genius for a brother. 

Pulling his last clean shirt over his head, Mickey checked the time. "It's early still. We can leave our shit here while we try and track down our money. Where do you wanna go first?" 

"We may as well start at the Elvis place. Maybe someone at the front desk will recognize the sign. I'm guessing there's more than one wedding chapel here with Elvis officiating. Unless you remember where we were between the casino and there? If we're retracing steps, may as well go in order, as much as we remember." 

"I think... nah, I don't know," Mickey said. "I was gonna say that I might recognize the street when we get outside, but let's not rely on my shitty memory." 

Jamming his phone into the back pocket of his jeans, Mickey opened their hotel room door and held it for Ian. It was less about being a gentleman and more to keep Ian from doing one last mirror check while Mickey waited for him in the hallway, but he might still get brownie points for it if he kept his mouth shut. 

"So, Elvis it is. The tattoo was after that, right?" Bits and pieces of the previous night were coming back to Ian, now that he was showered and had some hangover food in his belly, but it was kind of disjointed. "Fuck, man. If I ever give you shit again for when your memory was gone, you have my permission to lay me out. This fucking sucks." And it was only one night that he'd gone hazy on, not a decade. 

Mickey didn’t have anything to say to that, but the expression on his face meant that he didn’t really have to.

A stop at the front desk - the fact that the young lady working there could hardly stop giggling to speak to them did not bode well, Ian figured - gave them the information they needed to find the correct chapel, about a mile from the hotel. 

"I think I'd rather walk," Ian said when they went outside. "Less of a chance that I'll puke than if we're in a cab."

"Yeah. And, depending on how our financial situation ends up, we might be glad we didn’t spend cab money." 

The way that Mickey was squinting against the sunlight made him look like he'd just crawled out of a pit in a horror film, but he couldn't help it. Had the sun always been this bright? Where the fuck were his sunglasses? When was his brain going to start firing on all goddamn cylinders so he could get his shit together?

Not anytime soon, apparently. Mickey glowered at the Las Vegas strip as though it had personally offended him. 

When they reached the chapel, it was mostly deserted. This was probably because it was barely 8AM, but also possibly because it looked like an abandoned film set in the daylight. Nighttime forgave a lot of flaws, apparently. 

"Hey," Mickey said, addressing an older man who was sweeping up glitter. "Were you here last night?" 

The man glanced up and then did a double-take.

"Ah, the happy couple," he said, grinning, not looking at all like this was the first time someone had shown up asking questions the day after getting hitched. "I tried to tell this one - " He pointed to Ian. " - that you could get married here even if you were already married. It doesn't make the first wedding _not_ legal." He'd been responding to Mickey but he turned to address Ian, now. "Word of advice, kid. You're really terrible at keeping secrets when you're drunk. Might want to watch that." 

Ian did sort of recall that he'd warned Mickey not to tell anyone they were already married. The thing was, he could have sworn he had whispered it. 

"So, we were already drunk when we got here?" he asked. 

The man laughed. "Very." 

Mickey couldn't say that he was surprised, since he barely remembered it. 

"Did we leave anything here?" he asked. "Maybe, I don't know. A bag?"

The man, leaning on his broom now, shook his head. "You didn't leave anything," he said. "Not that I noticed. You probably saw most of what there was to see, though, if you watched the video."

Mickey blinked. "The video?"

"Sure. You took one on his phone." The man nodded at Ian. "You haven't watched it?"

"Ian's phone went for a swim," Mickey said darkly. 

"Well, that's too bad. You sure seemed like you were having a great time, with Elvis."

Ian grimaced. He wasn't sure which one of them the man was referring to, and he didn't ask. If they didn't find the money soon, Mickey's mood would be extremely unpleasant, and so Ian wasn't going to risk making it worse by finding out that Mickey was the one who'd had the 'great time with Elvis'.

"We didn't do anything crazy, right?" he asked, then clarified. "Like, out of the usual crazy? Like... tip Elvis five thousand bucks or something?" 

"Oh, you tipped him," the man laughed. "But not with money." 

Ian decided he didn't want to know about that, either. 

Mickey blanched. When the man grinned at him, he felt a dawning horror that maybe it had been him doing the tipping, and he immediately decided that he was way, way too hungover to think about that. 

"I think after this you said something about getting a tattoo," the man offered.

"Yeah, yeah. That's where we're going next." Mickey nearly tripped on Ian's foot in his haste to back out of there. "Thanks. I guess?"

"No, thank _you_ ," the man said with a wink. "Thank you very much."

Ian hadn’t missed the way the man had grinned at Mickey. Trying not to laugh, Ian followed him out, stopping short when they were just outside the door. 

"Holy shit. Wait - Mick, hold on. Did you hear him? I think that guy was fucking Elvis. I think I need to go back in and find out more about this tip.”

"Nope." Mickey grabbed Ian's arm in one hand and put the other on the small of his back to propel him across the parking lot. "I swore I wasn't gonna fuckin' say this, but what happens in Vegas..." 

"It can stay in Vegas!" Ian protested, laughing. "I won't tell anyone else!" 

Mickey ignored him.

Ian really was curious, that he couldn't deny. But maybe if Lip could fix his phone he could watch the video. Plus, there was the money to think about. 

"Do you even remember where the tattoo guy was?" he asked. "He didn't even have an actual shop. And if we left our cash in his van, we're never getting it back."

"Actually, yeah." Mickey changed their trajectory before he released his hold on Ian. "It was behind that diner up there. I remember because the diner is open twenty-four hours and the tattoo guy said that he had some people come out at 4AM the night before last and get matching 'MAKIN BACON' ass tattoos. Small miracles that you thought _'Mikhailo galeger'_ was more romantic, huh?"

"Maybe we should check your ass, make sure you didn't think those guys had the right idea,” Ian said, feigning seriousness. “I gotta say, Mick, I'm not sure I could ever fuck you again if your ass said, 'makin' bacon'. I love your ass, I love bacon. Not at the same time." 

Mickey made the universal jerk-off gesture to show what he thought of Ian's opinion on ass tattoos. "Listen, if we showered together this morning and you didn't look at my ass even once, we got bigger problems than bad tattoos."

"Hey. You're not gonna kick the guy's ass if he spent our money, are you?" Ian asked.

Mickey shrugged, glancing up the street to check for traffic before starting off across it. "I fuckin' might. That's my fuckin' money."

"Okay but, like..." Ian didn't even bother trying to talk Mickey out of putting a hurt on the guy. He knew a lost cause when he saw one. "Don't go crazy, okay? I cannot fucking bail you out of a Vegas jail just so we can go home and you get tossed back in there for whatever reason they cook up." 

“If he gives me my money back, we’re not gonna have a problem,” Mickey said firmly.

When they reached the guy's van, seeing no one around, Ian was almost relieved. 

"Surely he doesn't sleep in that, too. Right?"

"Let's find out." Mickey raised his arm and pounded on the side of the van with his fist. "Hey! Asshole!"

There was a moment of silence, then the muffled sound of someone swearing before the van's side door slid open.

"What the fuck, man." The tattoo artist looked, if possible, worse than they did. "I told you last night, no refunds. You don't like it, that's your problem."

"You're lucky I'm not here about that trainwreck," Mickey said, indicating Ian's tattoo. "I got better ink in prison. I want to know if we left a bag here."

"A bag?" The guy looked a genuine mixture of confused and insulted. "No, you didn't leave a bag here. You - " He was looking at Mickey. " - didn't let go of the strap the whole time you were here. If you lost the damn thing, it's your own fault. You practically advertised it was full of money, making sure I knew that there wasn't 'nothing interesting' in it. Someone probably swiped it from your drunk asses."

He started to pull the van door shut but paused. 

"And fuck you. My work is fucking awesome." 

As the door slammed shut, Ian turned to Mickey. "I dunno why but... I believe him." 

"Yeah.” Mickey frowned. “He is in way too shitty of a mood to be a guy who just came into fourteen large."

Mickey pressed a palm to his forehead. Of fucking course they were going to have to visit every last place they had been the night before. Of course they were. Maybe his liver would spontaneously fail after all the abuse he had put it through and he would finally be out of his misery. 

"Alright. Fucking - lobster place, I guess. Can't wait to talk to those assholes. Come on."

"Yeah..." Ian slung an arm around Mickey's shoulders, tugging him in for just a second before releasing him again. "Maybe you should let me do the talking there, yeah?" 

He remembered very little of the dinner, but he was pretty sure that Mickey had been the more mouthy one when they'd gotten thrown out. If they'd left their bag there, it might take some sweet talking to get it back. 

"Can't believe I finally had a fancy fucking meal and I don't remember it. I bet that's what you thought when you woke up with no memory and found out you were married to me."

"Oh, you bet that's what I thought, huh." Mickey aimed a playful, easily-evaded jab at Ian's side. "You think pretty fuckin' highly of yourself." 

"I mean, you still wanted to fuck me, still couldn't wait to get in my pants," Ian pointed out. "Surprised you were able to wait as long as you did." 

He still wasn't able to joke a lot about those months when Mickey's memory was gone, but little by little, as they both healed, it got a little easier to not look back and only feel the hurt.

"Well, yeah.” Mickey gave Ian a quick look-over. “Ain't my fault you look like that."

They started across the street again, ignoring traffic. "Hey, at least now you can't say I never take you anywhere,” Mickey said. “Looks like you ended up marrying a guy who buys you shit after all." 

Ian waved a half-assed apology at a guy in some fancy car who had to slam on the brakes to avoid hitting them. Mickey flipped the guy the bird when he honked.

"Again, half of that money is legally mine, so I'm not sure what it is you think you were buying me."

"Listen,” Mickey said. “I bought that lobster. And I know you picked it because I'm not even a fish guy. You probably thought it was romantic as shit."

"Yeah, I'm sure I picked it,” Ian agreed. “ _And_ paid for it out of my half of the money. And I wasn't going for romance, I can tell you that. I got that fucking lobster just because I _could._ If I wanted to be romantic, I'd have gone with oysters or some shit. And I would have paid for _that_ with my half of the money." 

"Alright, look, there's not 'halves' of the money, alright?” Mickey was far too grouchy to carry on with this particular joke. “It's our fuckin' money." 

"That's what I've been trying to tell you," Ian said, grinning, victorious. "It's _our_ money. You didn't buy me shit." 

He gave Mickey a quick one-two punch, lightly, on his shoulder. 

"Though I did kind of like the idea of being a kept boy. Not that that will happen if we don't find the money." 

Ian had a thought as he had to jog a couple of paces to catch up right beside Mickey. 

"Maybe we didn't even pay. You think we tried a dine and dash and got busted?"

Mickey looked like what Ian was suggesting had not occurred to him, but he shook his head. "Nah, they would've called the cops. We were so drunk that here's what happened: One of us tried to blow the other at the table - you - _or_ picked a fight with a waiter - me - _or_ we just forgot to use our indoor voices. Either way, they're giving us our fuckin' money."

"Even if they threw us out, they have to give us our property,” Ian said. “But please let me do the talking."

Mickey raised his hands in a gesture of submission. "Alright, Captain Manners. It's all you."

When they arrived at the restaurant, it didn't immediately appear to be open. However, when Mickey tugged on the door, it opened, and they were greeted by a blast of air conditioning and a kid in a sports jacket who looked like he recognized them immediately but was trying not to act like it.

"We're not open yet. Can I help you?"

Ian wasn't about to give Mickey a chance to change his mind and he stepped forward as soon as they were greeted.

"Hi, um, yeah... sir."

Not daring to look at Mickey, Ian gave his most charming smile. 

"My husband and I were here last night - we're celebrating our first anniversary, renewed our vows, you know - and we left kind of in a rush. Romance, right? And I think we left a bag here. See, my husband is only recently recovered from a horrible accident, nearly died, lost his memory for months. And sometimes, especially if we've had a little to drink, he doesn't always remember everything because of the brain damage, and I think our bag got left behind." 

The whole time he was talking, he was looking over the guy's shoulder, trying to see if anyone else was around, since he was pretty sure the guy knew exactly who they were, which was probably not a good thing. 

"I fucking _what_?" Mickey's eyebrows had practically vanished into his hairline, but when he saw the look that the guy in the jacket was giving them - the _I wonder how fast security can get here_ look - he visibly walked back his reaction. 

"Never letting you do the talking again," he muttered under his breath.

"I'm sure an establishment as - as nice as this one has a lost and found for customers, right?" Ian asked, ignoring Mickey completely.

"You didn't leave anything behind." The sports jacket guy seemed nervous. "You tried to free the live lobsters in the tank and you had to be removed. I don’t know if you had anything with you. You paid for your meal in... oddly sticky cash."

"Oddly... sticky?" Ian repeated. "Um... okay, then. Yeah. Thanks. We'll get out of your hair now." 

He could see that the employee _really_ wanted them to go, and if their money wasn't there, Ian was more than happy to oblige. He thanked him again, then turned and led the way back out. 

"Okay, first of all," he said, once the door was shut again. "I had to go with our best play, in case they had the money. Get some sympathy. You'd have just gone in doing the Milkovich holler and all _that_ would have accomplished would be getting us tossed out again.”

"Well, I'm pretty sure it wasn't my bright idea to free the fuckin' lobsters," Mickey said. "Which means that I'm not taking responsibility for us getting kicked out in the first place." 

"Fine, fine. But you'd have for sure gotten us tossed out again now."

The thing was, Ian _kind of_ remembered a drunken rendition of 'Come Sail Away', which he'd changed to 'go sail away'. So he was pretty sure Mickey was right about who had tried to free the lobsters. 

“And secondly,” he said, circling back around to his original comment, “ _Oddly sticky_? What the fuck did we do with that money?”

Mickey made a face. "Jello shots or jizz, man. Why the fuck else would it be sticky? If that guy handled the money, I hope it was jizz."

He turned to take a look up the strip. "Only one more place it could be. Keep your fuckin' shirt on this time, okay?"

"If taking my shirt off gets us our money back, then so be it," Ian said. "But I'm pretty sure I only did it to get you shots, so don't say I never did anything for you, either."

"I didn't need any more shots," Mickey said flatly. "You _definitely_ didn't need any more shots. Neither of us needed any more shots." 

There was no way he was giving Ian even a shred of credit for taking his shirt off for selfless reasons. 

After a beat, he said, "Where did we think the lobsters were gonna go? We're in the _desert_."

"How the fuck should I know?" Ian asked. "I think I wanted to take them home, but I'm not sure. Imagine trying to get those on the plane." 

"Imagine us trying to put a lobster tank in our nine by twelve living room." 

Ian had the sudden and ridiculous urge to kiss Mickey. Their entire evening, well. They'd probably never remember it all, but that was okay. If they didn't get the money back, that would be awful, but it would be the only thing Ian regretted about the entire trip. Not the shots, not the hangover, not even trying to free the lobsters. 

The bar wasn't far, but as they neared it, it looked dark, and the 'OPEN' sign was not lit up. Mickey frowned up at it. The sun was starting to get hot already, and it wasn't improving his hangover or his mood. He had discovered in Mexico that he was not necessarily a hot weather guy. 

"Shit.” Ian looked around to see if there were any other entrances. “I thought everything was, like, twenty-four hours here. Bars, at least." 

"Fuck,” Mickey said succinctly. “Well, all we can do is knock." 

For the second time that morning, he raised his fist and pounded on the door. 

For a long moment, there was no reply. Mickey had just raised his hand to knock again when a big, bespectacled woman opened the door, squinted first at Mickey, then at Ian, and grunted. Turning away from the door, she grabbed a bucket by the handle and thrust it at Ian. Water sloshed over the side. 

Mickey looked inside. A lobster sat at the bottom, eyeballing them pretty hard for a lobster.

"You said his name was Brian," the woman said. 

"Oh, shit." It was the only thing Ian could come up with. The guy at the restaurant hadn't said anything about them actually managing to _free_ one of the lobsters. What the fuck were they supposed to do with it? 

"Don't suppose we left anything else here last night?" he asked. "Besides, um, Brian here?"

"What, like a live lobster isn't enough? If you want your shirt back, too, you're out of luck. It's long gone now." 

Ian didn't even look at Mickey; he'd assumed he'd put it back on at some point but apparently not. 

Mickey raised his eyebrows at Ian, knowing full well that the latter was avoiding his gaze. 

"Informative," Mickey told the woman, dryly. "Thanks for keeping an eye on Brian, it's his emotional support lobster." 

The woman grunted at them and slammed the door in their faces. 

"Fuck me." Mickey rubbed both hands over his face. "Is this it? Are we up one lobster, down fourteen grand?"

"No,” Ian said. “No, I refuse to believe that we lost that money. Let's go back to the hotel and search again. It's gotta be in the room. We didn't check the toilet tank." 

The thought of somehow misplacing enough money to change their lives made Ian's stomach turn. It just wasn't an option. If they lost the money, that's all they'd remember from the trip, all Mickey would think about when he looked at the pictures. 

"Or... maybe we should drop Brian off first, back at the restaurant."

"The restaurant?” Mickey demanded. “So he can get his ass boiled after we took him out on the town and he got a taste of freedom? We're not doing Brian dirty like that."

Mickey made a 'come on' gesture and started off down the sidewalk, back in the direction of their hotel. The loss of the money was too much for him to think about right now, so he decided to handle his shit one step at a time.

"Las Vegas has gotta have an aquarium or something, right? We'll drop him off on the way to the airport."

"Mick, I don't think that aquariums take fucking lobsters." 

"What are you talking about? It's an aquarium, of course they take lobsters. It's not like we can Uber his ass all the way to the ocean."

Ian looked down at the pail in his hand, not at all agreeing with Mickey's opinion on Brian's fate, but having no choice but to follow him, he took a couple of long strides to catch up. 

"They might not even let us take him into the hotel, you know." The entire situation was fucking absurd. "No one is going to believe any of this shit when we tell them. You know that, right? Walking around Vegas with a fucking - live lobster in a pail."

Mickey glanced over at him. "Nobody has to believe it. Who gives a fuck. We had a - it was a good fuckin' night, even if we lost the money." He sounded terse, but he meant it. "It was the right thing to spend Terry's drug money on."

"Yeah. Hey, Mick." Ian slowed, wanting to be able to look at Mickey for a second. 

"I'm - sorry. If we lost the money, I mean... I'm the one who loses his head when he drinks. I'm probably the one who lost the bag somewhere. I'm sorry."

Before Ian was even finished, Mickey had closed the distance between them and cupped the back of his neck with one hand. 

"Hey. I'm not mad about the money. Well, I am, but I'm not mad at you. My dumb ass was probably being fuckin' obvious with it like the tattoo guy said and someone lifted it. It doesn't matter. We had a good night, right?" 

"Had a great night," Ian agreed. "Great fucking trip, every minute of it." 

Sure, parts of their anniversary celebration were little more than a blur, but Ian knew he had enjoyed all of it.

In public or not, he leaned down for one quick kiss then straightened up again. 

"The fuck would we even do with that much money, anyway?" he said. "We're obviously not equipped for that kind of responsibility."

"We'd blow it on something stupid," Mickey agreed. "Or we'd be home ten fuckin' seconds and we'd have to bail someone out of jail or some other dumb Gallagher shit.”

Ian couldn't argue with that. Anytime any Gallagher had extra money, like clockwork someone else would need bailed out or have some other emergency. 

Mickey nudged Ian's arm as they started to walk again. "Happy anniversary, anyway."

"What are we gonna do next year to top this?" Ian asked. "Gonna be pretty damn hard, I think. Have to try and win then lose twenty grand next time."

"Shouldn't be too hard," Mickey said. "Already feels like last night's money was some kind of fever dream."

They were nearing the hotel, but suddenly, without warning, Mickey grabbed Ian's hand and tugged him down an alley, crowding him up against the wall. 

"Hey. I love you." 

Ian was surprised but within just a few seconds his hands were on Mickey's hips and his gaze was soft. "I love you, too. Fourteen grand would have been nice, but... you getting your memory back, that pretty much set me for life. You can call me a sap, I don't care. That's all I need." 

Mickey pulled Ian down by his collar for a kiss, unable to keep from smiling into his mouth. "You're fuckin' soft as hell, you know that?" He looked extremely fond. 

"You made me this way,” Ian told him, pulling Mickey in long enough for one more slow kiss before releasing him.

"Come on,” Mickey said. “Let's go pack our shit and I'll buy you whatever you want at Waffle House that costs less than eight bucks."

"I don't want to flaunt or anything, but I still have my wallet with the debit card. We can get, like, eight bucks apiece,” Ian replied. “Hey, you think we have time to bang one more time in that hot tub?"

Mickey pulled his phone out of his back pocket and glanced at the time. "We might, but we gotta be quick. You think we can get back there and you can bang one out in less than twenty minutes?"

"Have we met?" Ian gave Mickey's ass a swat, then headed out of the alleyway. 

"Get a move on, grandpa," he called back over his shoulder before taking off in a run, water sloshing out of the bucket he was carrying and all down the side of his jeans. Yeah, the hangover was still present, but if they could turn this into a race, why the fuck wouldn't they?

"Oh, you fucker." Mickey broke into a jog that became a sprint when it became apparent that Ian wasn't slowing down. He caught up to him when they got close to the hotel's front doors, closing the distance by vaulting a parking barrier instead of going around it. He grabbed Ian around the middle and then adjusted his grip, jumping onto his back. 

"Too slow, bitch. Now you gotta carry me to the elevator." 

"Fuck off," Ian said, though as he laughed he was already gripping Mickey's thighs (which was giving him all kinds of ideas) to carry him in. "Don't remember this shit in the wedding vows. Musta been in the Elvis version, I guess." 

The doorman opened the door and Ian headed in with a, "Thank you, good sir." As soon as they were in the elevator, he dropped Mickey, turned and crowded him against the wall, kissing him hard. 

"Foreplay," he explained. 

"Mmm." Mickey grinned, sliding a hand into Ian's hair and the other around his waist, keeping him close. "I thought I wouldn't be into Brian watching our every move, but you know what? I ain't mad at it." 

"Pretty sure Brian has seen worse," Ian said, pail on the floor as he pressed in against Mickey. Were there security cameras in the elevator? Probably, but he didn't care. 

The elevator doors pinged and slid open and a very surprised-looking gaggle of mostly-female college students stood on the other side. Mickey grabbed Ian's hand and pulled him out of the elevator. 

"Get your own," he told one woman, who was staring particularly hard at Ian.

Ian grinned at the girl giving him the eye. In a moment of inspiration, he picked up the pail, shoved the handle into her hand. 

"Consolation prize," he told her with a shrug. 

Then, because they were in Vegas, celebrating not only their anniversary but also being married by Elvis, (and possibly because he was the soft bitch Mickey accused him of being), he held up his left hand to show off his ring. 

"Sorry."

Mickey snorted. "Yeah, the ring is the only thing stopping you."

He renewed his grip on Ian's hand and tugged him away from the group, single-mindedly focused now on getting to their room. Of course, he managed to put the key card in the wrong way twice, and by the time he figured it out the third time, he swore and practically threw it across the room once they were inside. He immediately kicked his shoes off and pulled his shirt off too, tossing it in the general direction of his half-packed bag before heading for the hot tub.

Laughing, Ian followed along, his laughter only getting louder as Mickey struggled to get out of his jeans.

"Is that the effect I have on you?" he asked, kicking the door closed, stepping out of his shoes and shedding his own clothes in a trail to the hot tub. 

He pushed down his jeans and boxers, stumbling over them a little before finally freeing himself. 

Mickey gave him a pointed look – _see? Getting undressed with an ungodly hangover isn’t as easy as it fucking looks_ – but Ian only laughed at him.

\--

Afterward, Mickey winced climbing out of the hot tub, hand braced on the side. "Holy fuck, my knees."

His first couple of steps looked a little painful as he went to their discarded pile of towels and tossed one at Ian. "It's like you're not meant to fuck in there, or something." 

Ian caught the towel, but he stayed where he was, sitting in the now lukewarm water, making no effort to hide the fact that he was enjoying watching Mickey walk around naked. 

"Sorry," he said, not looking it a bit. "Wasn't really your knees I was focused on. Maybe you're just getting old." 

Mickey flipped him off. "Damn right, I'm getting old. Give me my fuckin' raisin cereal or give me death. You know what this means? You better respect your elders."

"Respect you? Fuck that, that wasn't in the vows. Unless Elvis put them in." 

"Yeah, and you have no idea what Elvis put where." 

Mickey grinned at him, looking wholly mischievous - and definitely more relaxed about that situation than earlier.

"You and Elvis have something you need to tell me about?” Ian asked. “There's still time before our flight for me to kick his ass if he tried to get on you." 

Not that Ian could blame him if he had; he himself wanted to get on Mickey pretty much twenty-four-seven. Getting to his feet, he stepped out of the tub and started toweling off.

"Easy, tough guy,” Mickey said. “Whatever happened last night in Vegas is gonna stay in Vegas because I definitely don't remember. Anyway, we agreed not to fuck other people last year and I sure as shit am not about to start with Elvis." 

"We did more than agree," Ian said, tossing the towel in the direction of the bathroom door, stopping on his way to his suitcase, still naked, to pull Mickey in against him roughly by the hips. "You _promised_ not to fuck anyone else again. _Ever._ " He squeezed Mickey's ass, grinning. "And don't you forget it." 

Mickey kissed him before he pulled away and went to look for his boxers.

"You know, if we came here and _didn't_ lose a bunch of money, it wouldn't be a fuckin' Gallagher family vacation. So in a way, I'm making my peace with it. It still hurts, like in my soul. But I'm making peace." 

"We may have lost fourteen grand, but I think we still showed Vegas how South Side does it," Ian agreed. "Good thing we already have our plane tickets home bought, though. And, I mean. Technically we're not leaving here any worse off than when we arrived, which is probably more than most people can say, right? And you did meet your first drag queens."

"Yeah, you know.” Mickey shrugged. “The drag queens were alright. You made friends pretty quick. You always make friends pretty quick." 

Ian cocked an eyebrow. "That's because I smile from time to time. And, you know, I don't greet people with 'the fuck do you want?'"

Mickey had been about to pull a fresh shirt on, but realizing that it stank like beer, he made a face and swapped it for another one that smelled only somewhat better. It was apparently time to go home and do some laundry. "How else am I supposed to figure out what the fuck they want?" he asked.

Ian crouched down in front of his suitcase and pulled out a pair of jeans and two clean t-shirts, tugging one on and holding up the other. "I mean, you could just try saying 'hello'. You want to wear this? It's clean. One of us knows how to pack enough clothes.

Mickey took the shirt from him, but still flipped him off. 

"Sucks that Waffle House doesn't serve booze," he said, as he swapped shirts. "I could drink the hell out of a Bloody Mary. I swear I never used to get hangovers like this."

He tossed the dirty shirt back into his suitcase and zipped it. "Remember drinking and not wanting to die the next day? Man. The eighth grade. Those were the days." 

"You're an old man, now," Ian said, standing up so that he could step into his jeans. "Creaky knees, worse hangovers, forgetting where you left fourteen-k." 

"Lucky for me, you like old men," Mickey said, dodging as Ian tossed a plastic cup at him.

Once he'd gotten his socks and shoes on, Ian shoved his clothes into his suitcase, no longer caring if it was neat or not since they were going home. 

"Speaking of Waffle House, though. I do think we have time for breakfast once we check out, before we have to get to the airport."

Collecting his bag, Mickey glanced back over the room and wondered if he should maybe pity the maid service. He definitely didn’t have any cash to leave as a tip, since he had used what was left in his pockets from last night on the room service.

Holding the door for Ian, Mickey followed him down the hall to the elevator.

Once they were in the lobby, it was Mickey who brought their plastic key cards to the front desk. "I just leave these with you?" he asked the attendant.

She smiled. "Did you want to collect what you left in your deposit box at the front desk before you go?"

Mickey blinked. "My what?"

Ian, who had been more than happy to let Mickey handle the checking-out business as he was busy getting his hand down into the back pocket of Mickey's jeans and giving his ass a squeeze since he knew that the woman behind the desk couldn't see it, looked up at her words. 

"What'd you put in the box?" he asked Mickey. "You buy me a surprise or something?" 

Unlike Mickey, he was sure, Ian had read every word of the welcome brochures in the room, all of the amenities offered. So he knew there were boxes for each of the rooms to use for things they didn't want to keep in the in-room safes. But he hadn't known Mickey had put anything in theirs. 

"Fuck if I know," Mickey muttered. He really should, he thought, put a moratorium on getting blackout drunk for a little while. Turning to the attendant again, he waved his hand impatiently. 

"Yeah, give us what's in the box." 

She disappeared into a back room for a moment, while Mickey and Ian traded glances. When she returned, she was carrying a small green backpack. 

"This was yours?" she asked, mostly rhetorically as she put it on the counter in front of them.

Ian's jaw dropped when he saw the bag, but he made no move to open it. 

"Holy shit," he murmured. "You don't think...?" 

It was definitely the bag they'd had the night before but after reconstructing the night before and seeing the pictures, he was half afraid he'd find a dead lobster - or worse - inside. 

"You gonna open it?" he asked Mickey.

"Fuck me.” Mickey was, for once, almost speechless. “Yeah, I guess."

He took the bag off the counter and yanked the zip open. 

Inside were neat bundles of money.

"You gotta be fucking kidding me." 

As soon as he saw Mickey's reaction, Ian pulled his hand from Mickey's pocket, stepped in closer, and reached inside. "This - fuck, Mick. This is our money." 

He pulled out one stack, then another, leafing through the bills and making a rough count in his head of those and the other bundles in the bag.

"There's at least ten grand here. _It's our fucking money. I didn't lose it."_

Without another word, he put a hand on the back of Mickey's head and pulled him in for a hard kiss, grinning against Mickey's lips. 

Mickey was grinning too, sliding his arms around Ian's body and pulling him roughly in as close as he could get him. "How are we so smart and so fuckin' dumb at the same time? It's like we got married and agreed to split one fuckin' brain cell." 

He was holding on tightly to that bag in one hand. No way he was letting it out of his sight again. 

The thrill of finding the money and the thrill of Mickey tugging him close (it never got old) made Ian wish they hadn't actually checked out and could go another round in the room, though probably on the bed this time and not the hot tub. But that was what the flight home was going to be for.

"Shit, we were acting like that long before we got married," he said, laughing. There was a feeling of near-hysterical glee bubbling in his chest. _Ten grand. More than ten grand._ The stuff they could do with that money...

"Let's get out of here," he said. "Breakfast, then maybe a warm up in the airport bathroom to get ready for the mile high thing on the way home?" 

Behind them, the receptionist coughed lightly, and Mickey grinned wider. He reached down between them and palmed Ian through his jeans where the employee couldn't see. 

"Hell yeah," he said. "You read my mind. But maybe we do the buddy system with the bag from now on, huh?"

"Or maybe now you can just be in charge of the money," Ian said. "I think we both know you wouldn't have lost it." 

He was more than okay taking all the blame, now that they had the money back again. 

"Hey. We didn't lose it,” Mickey pointed out. “We put it in a safe place. Can't blame our drunk asses for not knowing we would forget about it in the morning." 

Finally becoming aware again of the woman, Ian turned to smile at her. 

"Thank you, thank you so much," he said, sincere enough that he earned a smile back from her in that way that many people couldn't resist responding to him. "We - we'll tell all of our friends about this place." 

Mickey snorted. Yes, all of their friends who could afford to stay in a four-star in Vegas.

Ian tugged the zipped on the bag closed then handed it to Mickey. 

"Probably best you take this as carry-on."

Mickey tucked the bag over one shoulder. "We're not telling anyone in your family about this until we figure out what we're doing with it," he warned. 

Ian hesitated but only for a second before nodding. "Until we get it into the bank, at least." They still helped out with his family when they could but a sum this large needed to not be wasted. And no one but them had access to their accounts. "And we're not telling Frank at all. Ever. Man... this is like having a nest egg or whatever, isn't it? Never had any money like this in my life."

"Yeah. This is game-changing money. We gotta make a plan." Mickey reached up to squeeze Ian's shoulder as they left the hotel. "We got our own place. We got a savings account. Are we fuckin' respectable?"

"Hell, no." Ian looked almost offended by the joke. "We could have a mansion on the North Side and some home in the - wherever-the-hell rich people have their second homes, and have, like, a cool mil in the bank and we'd still not be respectable. Rich, I could live with. But respectable? Fuck, no."

And then, as if to prove his point, he asked, "Still gonna let me fuck you on the plane?"

"On the flight; after the flight. Once we get home, on this pile of money." Mickey grinned at Ian. "Bank's still gotta take it, even if my ass has been on it."

"Listen," Ian said, his tone stern but he was grinning back. "I told you when Sandy dropped off your share of Terry's shit. I am not fucking you on money that we have to take to the bank. You can stack it on the head of the bed and look at it, if you want. Gaze lovingly at it. Say its name when you come. Whatever works for you. But I'm not fucking you on it. A man's gotta have some standards."

"When the fuck did you get standards?” Mickey demanded. “I had to clean mayo out of my ass, pal; don't come at me with standards." 

"Yeah, _you_ had to deal with the mayo,” Ian said. “ _I_ had to deal with the mayo. We didn't rub your ass-mayo on letters and send them home to people. How the fuck could you look the teller in the eye if you give her money you know has lube crust on the corners?"

Honestly, Ian was almost as surprised as Mickey was by how intensely opposed he was. But, really? Shouldn't the line be drawn _somewhere_?

"You think there's no lube crust on this already?" Mickey asked. "Do you know how many stripper muffs a dollar bill has touched before you get it? You know there's money that _Frank_ has touched in circulation, right?" 

He shook his head. "I just want to be the _last_ person whose ass touches this money before the bank gets it. I don't feel like that's a lot to ask." 

Ian walked a couple of paces then sighed, relenting like they both probably knew he would. "Yeah, alright. But not all of the money, and we're keeping it separate for you to take to the bank. When I am not around." 

He shook his head, fighting back a smile. "Fuck you and those eyes. Can't say no to you for anything."

Mickey's face split into a grin, and he bumped his shoulder against Ian's as they walked. 

"You're easy, Gallagher," he said. "But you kinda like it that way." 


End file.
